“That doesn’t surprise me.” Nadia remembered being bullied during grade school for having a Russian-sounding name. Kids didn’t care that she wasn’t Russian, and that her parents had escaped the Iron Curtain. “Where is his mother now?”
“She died during childbirth.”
That was consistent with what Nadia’s uncle had told her last year.
“Once, in seventh grade,” Hanna said, “a new student moved here from Zhytomyr. I was parking my car when I heard three boys telling him about Adam. They warned him not to get close to Adam, that he could get infected if he touched him, or even breathed the air surrounding him. They said no girl would come within three meters of him, and that he was destined to live and die alone. Right at that moment, Adam walked by with his military knapsack filled with rocks, as he always did. And the kids started chanting ‘Freak, freak, freak.’ When I ran out from behind the partition blocking the cars from stray footballs and made myself visible, the new boy was already chanting with them.”
“Wait. Why was his knapsack filled with rocks?”
“Training. To make his legs stronger. For hockey. The boy lived for hockey. It was his therapy. And his guardian—the brute. He had sadistic training methods.”
Which worked, Nadia thought to herself. “Did Adam have any friends?”
“Just Eva.”
“Eva?”
“His guardian’s niece. They lived under the same roof. Eva was two years older. She suffered from a thyroid affliction. It’s a common genetic disease among children whose mothers had radiation syndrome. He followed her like a puppy dog. She never seemed to mind. Another loner. Black hair and purple lipstick. She dressed like a witch every day. They were kindred spirits. They had only each other.”
This was the first Nadia had heard of a girl. “May I speak with her? Or did she graduate?”
“I’m afraid she passed away two years ago.”
“That’s awful.”
“It broke her uncle’s heart, too. Even brutes have feelings. He held on while Adam was still there, but once the boy disappeared loneliness got the better of him. He also died. About six months ago. Alcohol poisoning.”
Nadia’s spirits sank.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Hanna said.
“I was planning to pay him a visit next.”
“At least I’ve saved you the trip.”
“Is there anyone else I can speak to? Was Adam close to one of the teachers?”
“Adam wasn’t close to anyone. He rarely said a word if he wasn’t asked a direct question in class. The teachers developed a phobia for him, too. It’s sad, but true. No one was confident there was no risk of contamination from touching him, breathing the same air as him, being in his vicinity. People understood it was nonsense intellectually but they had trouble accepting it psychologically. The truth is some of the teachers weren’t keen on having him in their classes.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about him? Anything at all?”
Hanna wet her lips and glanced at the door to her office, as though making sure it was closed. “Well there was that rumor about Eva and him.”
“What rumor?”
“That their guardian gambled and drank his pension away, and forced them to do something to supplement the family income.”
Nadia cringed. Prepared to hear something hideous. “What did he force them to do?”
“Steal from the dead.”
Nadia frowned. “What does that mean, steal from the dead? Rob graves?”
“That is what a teacher told me. She heard Eva utter the phrase to Adam in the hallway. Once. Only once. I demanded an explanation from Adam but he denied Eva ever said it.”
A wave of relief washed over Nadia. She’d feared the hockey coach—as Adam called him—had forced the kids to do something even more unsavory for money. Digging up a grave sounded illegal and immoral, but there were worse things.
“They must have been desperate,” Nadia said.
Hanna nodded. “People go to their graves with the craziest things. Rings, watches—I had an aunt who asked to be buried with her money in case the houses on the beach are cheaper on the other side.”
“Problem is,” Nadia said, “I’m not sure it’s a capitalist system on the other side. And even if it is there are no guarantees for anyone but the rich.”
Hanna smiled wearily. “Tell me about it.”
Nadia thanked her and left. She climbed into the car and asked the driver to take her back to Kyiv. Along the way she pictured Adam and a young witch with purple lipstick breaking into a casket in search of gold.
To open the casket, they used a screwdriver. To see inside it, they shined a flashlight.
CHAPTER 31
AFTER SHE RETURNED to the hotel, Nadia walked to the Saint Sophia Cathedral and waited for Marko at an outdoor café. She’d convinced Marko to come straight to the café after he was done with his work at the Central State Historical Archives. No sightseeing. No pops at a bar that struck his fancy. No attempts to pick up the first Ukrainian temptress willing to talk to him.
In Kyiv, Nadia’s father was never far from her mind. He died when she was thirteen, when the thought of a free Ukraine was preposterous. If he could see her sitting outside Saint Sophia in his homeland, the country liberated, he would have died and gone right back to heaven. He’d taken an active role among Ukrainian-Americans, a community of immigrants that believed it was their responsibility to keep Ukrainian culture alive in the free world during Soviet oppression.
It was her father who took her on the Appalachian Trail at age twelve, to the precise spot where Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York met. There, compass in hand, he pruned two branches to create a circle of light on a bed of pine needles. Told her to sit down in the light. Asked her if she understood she was the luckiest girl in the world to be living in the best place on Earth.
He explained what she already knew. That the Soviet Union was in the process of destroying all traces of Ukrainian culture. Its only sanctuary was the free world. Its only hope was the next generation. She was the future of Ukraine. To survive in America as an immigrant’s daughter, she would have to be strong. She would have to be resilient.
And so he handed her a sleeping bag and a knapsack with three matches, food and water for one day, a mess kit, some rope, a compass, a poncho, and her twelve inch Bowie knife. He told her he was proud of her and certain she wouldn’t disappoint him. He said he would return to pick her up in three days at that precise spot. Then he left.
Nadia had been a member of a Ukrainian youth group called PLAST. Summer camps occupied the middle ground between American scouting and ROTC training. Nadia had trained for the three-day survival test since age eight. She knew to find high ground. She knew how to build a lean-to. She knew how to start a fire, and she could boil water and set traps to catch small game. She knew how to defend herself even though she was only twelve. Three days and two nights alone on the Appalachian Trail should have been a routine exercise.
But, of course, it wasn’t.
After a half hour wait, Marko cast a shadow in front of the cathedral. He was breathing heavily.
“Valentine visited the nuclear power plants at Chornobyl every year between 1985 and 1990,” he said.
Valentine. Power plants. Chornobyl. 1985 to 1990.
The words sounded too good to be true. They provided a possible link between Valentine and Bobby.
“That’s incredible,” Nadia said. Then she remembered Marko was not a forensic securities analyst. “Are you sure?”
Marko sat down, took the napkin from under her coffee, and wiped his forehead. “The Ecology Committee had a bunch of sub-committees. One of them was the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant Monitoring Committee. It was created in September, 1986 after reactor four exploded. The three guys on the Chornobyl Committee we
re the three youngest guys on the Ecology Committee.”
“Because the old guys didn’t want to get exposed.”
“Who would? They put Valentine on the Chornobyl Committee as soon as he showed up. So we’ve established a connection between him and Chornobyl. We know he visited the area regularly. The only problem is that was 1985 through 1990. And Bobby wasn’t born until 1996. So we’re back at square one.”
“Not necessarily,” Nadia said. “The Ukrainian government took over sole management of the plants when it proclaimed independence. If you were assuming responsibility for a mess like that, and there were people with previous knowledge of the disaster, wouldn’t you hire them as consultants? At a minimum they’re a low cost insurance policy against missing valuable information.”
“And if that’s the case, Valentine might have kept making trips to Chornobyl for years.”
“He might have done just that.”
“How do we find out if he did?”
“We ask someone who’s intimate with the Zone.”
“The Zone?” Marko said.
“The Zone of Exclusion. No one’s allowed within a nineteen mile radius of the reactors without permission.”
“You know someone like that?”
Nadia remembered Karel, the botanist with Einstein hair who hit on her as soon as he saw her in the café near the nuclear power plant, only to reveal he knew exactly who she was and what she was doing in Chornobyl.
“I do,” she said.
CHAPTER 32
LAUREN CLIMBED THE stairs above a clothing boutique named Cry Wolf and rang the doorbell. The door opened within five seconds, as though Victor Bodnar was expecting her. A strikingly handsome young guy with short blond hair let her in. He said hello with a thick Russian accent. As he closed the door behind her, his short sleeve inched up to reveal part of a tattoo. A girl with snakes for hair. Poor guy, Lauren thought. Still in his early twenties but he already held the opposite sex in low regard.
“Please allow me to escort you to the kitchen,” he said. “Mr. Bodnar will visit guests in his kitchen.”
He bowed, turned, and led the way. As though that wasn’t weird enough, when they walked past the living room on the right, she spotted his clone reading one of those soft-core men’s magazines with some actress on the cover. They were identical twins. Had to be. And to top things off, the twin stood when he saw Lauren and gave her his own little bow.
“Good morning, madam,” he said.
Not gay, she thought. Just super polite. A little odd, but there was nothing wrong with that. Lauren had a healthy respect for eccentricity.
The kitchen looked like an insane asylum for a chef. It was entirely white, with linoleum and appliances from the 1980s. Not a speck of dust or dirt. Toaster, microwave, and cookies jars perfectly centered and standing at attention.
The kid pulled the chair out for her at a small circular table. Lauren thanked him and sat down, put her bag on the adjacent chair. Who would have thought? One Russian kid had more manners than all the men at the Sports Network combined.
She heard footsteps. Coming rapidly down some stairs. Too fast and too many to belong to one person.
A tuxedo cat appeared in the kitchen. Tail up. It studied Lauren. Her mother had been a cat rescuer. Never fewer than two in the house. Lauren slid her chair out and patted her legs. The cat trotted forward and jumped onto her lap. It arched its back to accept Lauren’s pets.
“Damian, leave the young lady alone.”
Lauren twitched. The cat flew off her lap.
A short old man stood in the doorway. He was dressed in vintage immigrant tweed. He was unremarkable in every way. And in that way, he was remarkable. He seemed as though he could blend with air. There was something relaxing about him. Lauren felt immediately at ease.
He introduced himself as Victor Bodnar.
“Vodka?” he said. He reached into a pantry and pulled out a bottle and two glasses.
“No,” Lauren said. “The last time I had a shot things didn’t turn out so well for me.”
The creases in his face deepened. Lauren feared she was insulting him, but too bad. She’d learned her lesson on Little Diomede Island.
His disappointment vanished as though he could read her thoughts. “A wise move,” he said. “Drinking in the morning is never a good thing. But sometimes an old man needs a little encouragement to get through the day.”
He poured himself a shot and raised the glass in her direction. “Na Zdorovya.” He knocked it back, and sat down across the table from Lauren.
“Mr. Obon said you once mentioned a boy named Bobby Kungenook to him,” Lauren said. “I’m a reporter—”
“Obon says nice things about you. I love young people. So nice to meet a new one. Tell me some things about yourself first. Indulge an old man, please.”
Lauren took a breath. She sensed if she refused she wouldn’t get anywhere. “What would you like to know?”
“Where were you born?”
“Hawaii.”
“What is your father’s given name?”
“Remy.”
“Where was he born?”
“Mississippi.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“I have a sister.”
“When you were a child, did you play with dolls or other girls?”
“Neither. I didn’t have any friends. Or dolls.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “Whose voice from childhood do you miss the most?”
Lauren didn’t know why she was answering him honestly except that there was something compelling about him. And therapeutic about the moment. “My mother,” she said, her voice cracking.
“And where is your mother now?”
“She’s gone.”
Victor nodded sympathetically. “And if I offered you a clear conscience or ten million dollars, which would you choose?”
Lauren remembered getting the phone call from her father on her mother’s last day. He hadn’t been home the night before. Another starlet, no doubt. He told Lauren her mother wasn’t answering her phone. When Lauren called her mother a minute later, there was still no answer. She should have left the house immediately.
“That depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“If a clear conscience means I get my mother back.”
Victor held her eyes with his for a moment. Then he reached out and patted her on the arm.
The buzzer to the door sounded. Victor turned his head to listen. Footsteps from the living room to the front door. A deadbolt slid open. More footsteps. People walking into the apartment. More than one person. One of the twins said something in Russian or Ukrainian, but no one answered.
Victor fixed his collar. He stood up and took a deep breath, as though preparing for something that might tax his constitution.
“Forgive me, please,” he said. “I forgot I had an appointment. Stay right there. This won’t take long.” He started out of the kitchen and stopped. “Sometimes I’m asked to help resolve disagreements in the community. Two guests have arrived. Enterprising types. They’ve asked for my help to resolve a business dispute. Why don’t you come to my courtroom as an observer?”
“Courtroom?”
“Yes,” Victor said, as though there were nothing peculiar about his calling a room a courtroom. “You might find it interesting.”
The reporter in Lauren asserted herself. She was up even before she said yes. A voice inside her told her to be cautious, but the reporter within her silenced it. If Victor Bodnar resolved disputes in the community, he might be the type of man who knew everything about everyone. Including Bobby Kungenook. If that was the case, her best course of action was to flatter and play along with him. She grabbed her oversized bag from the floor.
“I don’t allow bags in the courtro
om,” Victor said. “Everyone must follow that rule, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have an X-ray scanner or a metal detector.”
Lauren waited for him to laugh, chuckle or grin to show he was kidding. He didn’t do any of those things. Instead he stared at her bag and waited. Lauren lifted her wallet and computer out of her bag.
“The wallet, yes,” Victor said. “The computer, I’m afraid not. No cell phones, no electronic devices of any kind. I can assure you your computer will be safe inside this kitchen. There are only my nephews here. I trust them with my life.”
No phones or electronic devices, Lauren thought. The parties to this dispute were starting to pique her interest. Lauren slipped the computer back in the bag.
Victor eyed the purse. “If you give me your word there is no weapon or tape recorder, I won’t insult you by asking to look inside.”
She was the one who chuckled. Popped the purse open and unzipped the change compartment. Tilted it toward Victor so he could see inside.
He grimaced, as though mortified she was being subjected to such scrutiny, and threw his right hand up in disgust for good measure. But he still snuck a look inside.
“This way to the courtroom,” he said.
He turned and headed up a narrow flight of L-shaped stairs. Lauren followed. Victor’s earlier words resonated. He called the two parties to the dispute “enterprising types.” His obsession about recording devices suggested something sensitive was going to be discussed. His concern about security meant the visitors to his courtroom could get violent. Probably had been violent in the past.
What if by “enterprising types” he meant criminals? What if she was walking into a mock courtroom where mob disputes were resolved? Obon said that Victor Bodnar made his fortune in the food business. He didn’t look like any baker, farmer, or grocery store operator she’d ever seen. What was she walking into?
The Boy Who Stole From the Dead Page 16